This is an excerpt from Among the Thugs by Bill Bruford. It's an excellent book. Want to take a gander on what it's about?

Football.

Not soccer. Football. That's English if you didn't get it. Not American, but English. Here's a longer snippet:

A crowd is fickle, capricious, unpredictable. A crowd is a dirty people without a name. A crowd is a beast without a name. A crowd is a wild animal. A crowd is like a flock of sheep, like a pack of wolves, like horse-tame when in harness, dangerous when set free. A crowd is like a fire burning out of control, destroying everything in its way, including finally itself. A crowd is in a fever, in delirium, in a state of hypnosis. A crowd reveals our Darwinian selves, primal hordes suddenly liberated by the sway of the pack. A crowd reveals our Freudian selves, regressing to a state of elemental, primitive urgency. A crowd killed Socrates, a crowd killed Jesus. A crowd kills.